A beginner’s guide to secondary reading
Whether you’re a humanities student or not, deciphering academic essays is challenging at the best of times. One can easily be overwhelmed by the amount of information available and the often dense writing style. Jessica Holifield shares her top tips for tackling secondary resources and how to use them to your advantage.
When I started my English BA back in 2017, I had never read any criticism as dense as what I was faced with at University. The Approaches to Criticism module in first year prepared me for what was to come: I was provided with an overview of some of the main theories I would engage with later on in my degree. Every sentence was so densely packed with information that it was difficult to decipher what bits I should pay attention to and what was okay to skim over. I would end up with pages almost completely covered in highlighter! Luckily, I soon got the hang of note-taking and managed to figure out where to look for information.
When reading any new material, it is important to ask yourself: what do I want to learn from this? How is this useful to my studies? Something I was told in first year was to always consider why we had been given particular material. What is it the lecturers want us to take from it? With that in mind, you can get a clearer view of what you are meant to be gaining from a text, rather than just going in blind. If you are facing up to a big topic like Marxism, it may be a good idea to have a more accessible website up alongside your reading to help you. It’s also useful to look up key terms before starting your reading and make a note of their definitions. That way, you’ve got them in front of you and you don’t have to look up what ‘bourgeoise’ means for the third time. The Online Oxford English Dictionary works particularly well for this, and it can be accessed via the Exeter Learning Environment. There is a lot of jargon in criticism; once you have wrapped your head around this new vocabulary, however, the texts instantly become more accessible.
When reading any new material, it is important to ask yourself: what do I want to learn from this? How is this useful to my studies?
In terms of academic essays and articles, a long-standing favourite of English students is, of course, the trustworthy JSTOR. JSTOR is always reliable and is quite easy to navigate as a search engine. It was the first database I used when I came to University, and I still use it frequently now. It’s full of interesting material. Another one I like is ProQuest – it has quite a lot of material and the essays are usually clearly formatted and accessible, as is the MLA Database.
If you are ever searching for material by a particular writer or are looking for a specific text, look it up using the library search engine on ELE. This is something I should have done more often in first year! It lets you know instantly if you can access certain material and saves you from going on lots of different sites.
I think the best thing you can do is to take the time to browse through all the different databases Exeter has and familiarise them. Find out which ones you like and which you are less keen on. That way, when the time comes to researching a topic for an essay, you at least have your bearings.
It can be tempting to copy out what you see in front of you word for word. Realistically, it’s not the best use of your time to write out copious amounts of notes. I recommend reading texts twice.
Note-taking is an important part of deciphering academic texts. This takes time. It can be tempting to copy out what you see in front of you word for word. Realistically, it’s not the best use of your time to write out copious amounts of notes. I recommend reading texts twice. Your first reading is to get to grips with the material. Highlight what you think is important, with your seminar questions at the back of your mind. You might want to put an asterisk next to something you want to look up later. Then, with that done, check out the bits you have highlighted and write them out in your own words. If there is something on a particular page that you might want to go back to later, it’s a good idea to make note of the page number.
Ultimately, university coursework can be challenging and it will definitely be a step up from A-level. But with time and patience, understanding the material becomes easier. Tutors will anticipate students not understanding everything, or having trouble with their course content. This is why seminars are such a fantastic opportunity to discuss, ask questions, and learn from each other. If you feel too shy to ask a question in a seminar, you can always email your tutor. They will appreciate your interest in the topic. In short, effective note-taking, asking questions, and patience will lead you to a thorough understanding of dense material!
